But former mayor Paul Pisasale, his deputy Paul Tully, and their two executives Carl Wulff and Jim Lindsay would be sure to swing by the city that never sleeps on one of their now infamous study tours.
Before jetting off for the 2010 tour, the four allocated themselves about $14,000 in spending money as they went looking for ideas to incorporate into a redevelopment of the Ipswich CBD.
This was the first of several study tours undertaken by the officials, after being appointed as directors of the entity set up by council, Ipswich City Properties, to drive the redevelopment.
Details of excessive spending on these trips can now be revealed after 9News accessed a trove of documents, kept hidden for more than a decade.
While visiting the US, their official itinerary took in more than five states and districts spanning California to Tennessee, yet photos from Las Vegas are also included in their travel file, despite not featuring on the official itinerary.
This tour would bring the local government officials in contact with diplomats like Australian Ambassador Kim Beazley.
They left gifts along the way, including for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who later thanked them in a letter where he said he hoped they returned again soon.
Altogether, it cost the publicly funded council company more than $85,000 for just a couple of weeks.
But it paled in comparison to their next study tour to the Middle East and Europe in 2012, which a Crime and Corruption Commission investigation would later find cost more than $170,000 after the group chartered a private jet, stayed at luxury hotels and took a helicopter joy-flight.
The CCC investigation found evidence the four “engaged in a significant amount of non-official activity”, spending an “excessive amount on accommodation” in the latter trip.
When approached by 9News, Tully did not recall the specifics of his work-related tours.
“What I remember was going on a trip overseas, two trips overseas,” he said.
“I don’t have the records so genuinely I don’t have the records to comment.
“There was one trip 10 or 12 years ago, another trip approximately the same era, I don’t have those records.”
Details of these tours would be kept secret for years despite multiple attempts by media to find out how the publicly backed entity was spending its money.
In 2016, it was revealed Ipswich City Council spent a further $83,000 on lawyers to fight several attempts to access the documents under Right to Information (RTI) laws.
Council lawyers successfully argued private companies like Ipswich City Properties did not fall under the same requirements within RTI laws as other public agencies.
But those very documents would later fall into the hands of administrators appointed by the State Government to council when it spectacularly dismissed elected officials in 2018, citing matters including excessive overseas travel.
A McGrathNicol report commissioned by administrators would discover Ipswich City Properties encountered net losses of up to $78 million, with the council having to write off $25 million of debt it was owed in 2019 before it was wound up.
By the time a newly elected council took office in 2020, led by succeeding Mayor Teresa Harding, attempts were underway for these papers to be released to the public on the council’s new “Transparency Hub” website.
But that too would be scuttled, this time by the Office of the Information Commissioner for a number of reasons, including that former council staff should be afforded some rights to privacy.
However, the Commissioner’s ruling would not prevent other parties from filing separate requests for access to the papers.
Know more? Contact reporter Josh Bavas at joshbavas@nine.com.au
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